Harvard Beats Yale (2008)

You want real football on screen? That’s what Kevin Rafferty’s documentary provides. There’s lots of footage from the famous 1968 game between the traditional Ivy rivals, which ended in a tie after Harvard scored 16 points in the final 42 seconds. More than that, though, and this is what makes the film so memorable (the title tells you how the game comes out, right?), is the way it’s a meditation on aging and character. Rafferty conducted talking-head interviews with many of the players (one of them is onetime Harvard lineman Tommy Lee Jones), and to see these men four decades after their exploits on the field is to be reminded that time is the one opponent no team can defeat.—M.F.